How to add sub-tasks to your work packages (Enterprise add-on)

With the release of OpenProject 15.1, the design of the Relations tab for work packages has been improved, but some customers miss the feature of being able to create corresponding sub-tasks (children) or other related work packages directly. Don’t worry: we are already working on a feature that will soon make it possible to create relations directly from the Relations tab again.

In addition to that, there is a clever workaround for displaying a table of related work packages:

How to: Add a table of related work packages to a work package form (Enterprise add-on)

While the redesigned Relations tab improves clarity and usability, you can use a clever workaround to display related work packages directly within a work package form. This approach allows you to maintain an overview of related tasks or items at a glance.

Steps for admins to configure the table:

1. Navigate to Administration > Work packages > Types.
2. Choose the work package type you want to configure (e.g. Epics) and access the Form configuration tab.
3. Click on +Group and select Add table of related work packages.
4. Specify in the filter the relation you want to be displayed (e.g. Children) and sort your table as you like.
5. Name your new group.
6. Click Apply and then Save your changes.

With this setup, users can view all related work packages directly on the form, providing a clear and centralized overview of connections and dependencies. This is how the work package could look like with the set-up that we described above:

For more details, check out our documentation.

When will I be able to add children directly in the Relations tab of a work package?

We are already working on a feature to make it possible again to add children directly in the Relations tab of a work package. As the holiday season approaches, it will be included in a release early 2025. As we work in an agile way, we constantly update OpenProject. This allows us to enable features almost right away. Thank you for your understanding and your patience. We hope that the workaround that we described above will help you in the meantime.

Tip: Visit our Community instance to test features on advance

On our Community instance, we do not only develop our product out in the open, but also deploy a new version a few days or even weeks in advance of the official release. Check out our guide to the Community instance to learn more.